


Precarious Trust

by ParadifeLoft



Series: Not Your Hero [4]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: ....more or less?, Gen, Inter-faction Cooperation, Jedi religious questioning -ish, Nonbinary Character, trauma aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:24:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8189863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: Darth Malgus's declaration of a New Sith Empire from Ilum leads to an unexpected type of interfaction diplomacy from an even more unusual source.





	

With as many commanders (physical or hologram) crammed into the Republic Ilum base’s central chamber as there were, it wasn’t a terribly big surprise that half an hour later, there was still no solid consensus on what to do. Rivka might have assumed the opposite if this were her first mission – rank meant expertise, right? – but then, if that were the case, she also would have had to bite her tongue (bite it _off_ , more like) to achieve her actual current lack of commentary.

For the moment, there was a matching lull in the conversation from the rest of the occupants, though – the look and sound of multi-party disagreement, each watching the others to reassess.

The silence was broken, not by Jiyan Dar or Grandmaster Shan, but by a young enlisted human entering the room.

 “Supreme Commander, sir! We’ve got a Sith here that’s just walked up to the base, alone. Says they have a message.”

And to think she’d had been hoping for a distraction from the current discussion. The silence took on a distinctly different air within the moment.

Admiral Rans turned toward the soldier, Rivka catching the attempt in his expression at clamping down on a disbelieving snarl. “How stupid do they think we have to be, to come and try that one again right after that broadcast - “

“ - _that broadcast_ is the reason for my visit, Commander,” a sharp voice interrupted from the war room’s entrance. An Imperial accent, all upper-class crispness and malice. “And if that is your attitude, you will be pleased to note that my purpose here is not to speak with _you_. I come with a message for Jedi Master Jaexyth.”

The solid form of the war table between herself and - Lord Vestiin? – the Emperor’s Wrath? – made itself suddenly very present in Rivka’s sense of the room, and she was glad for it. Whether it was just her or not, the base temperature seemed to have dropped a few degrees further from the already frigid atmosphere, even as a charged current in the Force sparked through it. The Wrath looked little different from the last time they’d met, still in an elaborately carved bone eyemask and sleek oiled armor with the characteristic half-cloth half-metal sheen of cortosis weave; manner still haughty and practised in intimidation. Faced with that, even with no active enmity, a psychological shield of any sort was useful.

“Sir, we’ve got their lightsabers - is there anything else we should - “

“Please don’t pretend I couldn’t retrieve them before the most fractional twitch of your muscles if you begin to bore me,” the Wrath cut in once more, chin turning to the distinctly alarmed soldier standing to zer side. “And I will point out, for the value of engaging in this usual dance of motive-guessing, that in my arrival here I have killed none of your men, not even the ones who tried to shoot at me.” If not quite proud at zer self-restraint, Vestiin’s tone was, at the very least, condescending enough to suggest that the soldiers in the room ought to be.

But once done considering the soldiers that accompanied zer in a sad farce of an escort, vhe looked - or at least turned her face - back to Rivka.

“Master Jaexyth, if you would be so kind to come over here and indicate to these cannon fodder that they’ve no need to wet themselves preparing to fight me? My timetable is a bit limited.”

Everyone’s eyes in the room drifted, understandably, toward where Rivka was standing; she felt their scrutiny of her imminent decision and not-quite-friendly curiosity – why would a Sith show up to ask for her personally and almost amicably? – like the heat of an encircling wildfire. Was almost surprised Grandmaster Shan hadn’t said anything yet… Nothing but to go for it, though. She pushed away from the table, and clamped away her habitual nervous gesture of squeezing at the joints of her hands. “Alright, let’s make this quick then.”

The soldiers around Vestiin backed away to let zer walk free, still with some trepidation that Rivka could feel in the Force, as she passed them with a glance at the Wrath to follow just outside the war room. Rivka stood just in front of the doorway, arms crossed, open space on each side of her position; Lord Vestiin brushed past, to settle in the slightest lean in a similar posture with zer back to the icy wall.

“Alright, I’m here. What do you want me for, and why did you come here?”

Vestiin tilted zer head, but otherwise gave no indication of an opinion of Rivka’s tone in zer expression. “Well, you never exactly gave me your comm frequency.”

Rivka raised an eyebrow. Was vhe serious? “Well, I’m not exactly fond of getting unsolicited messages from Sith. Which _has_ happened before. So, what is it you need to tell me so badly?”

“Straight to task - I appreciate that.” From the hint of a small, businesslike smile that flickered across zer face, it was probably even true. “I wished to warn you against partaking in any military action against Darth Malgus that the Republic is no doubt contemplating as we speak.”

Rivka frowned, as a jumble of half-formed questions and hypotheses sprung like a tangled patch of weeds through her mind. But she wasn’t twenty anymore; she knew where her own knowledge was too patchy to cut quickly to accurate conclusions, and the internal plotting among the Sith was one of those places. “Warn me _against_ it?” she settled for. “Why’s that? What’s your angle?”

Black eyebrows peeked over the top edge of Vestiin’s mask. “My _angle_ as you put it, is that this is an _internal_ matter. This is _our_ Emperor’s position that Malgus is usurping; it is a matter that we shall handle of our own accord. We don’t need _interlopers_ ,” - vhe sneered at the word, the first display of serious emotion in the entire interchange since vhe’d arrived, Rivka noticed, “ - mounting some sort of half-cocked offense and rushing in to make a mess of things. Traitor or not, a Republic attack on a Lord of the Sith remains an attack on the Sith Empire, and none of our forces will hesitate to respond in kind should that happen.”

Which was an understandable enough position, if frustratingly arrogant and isolationist as far as concern for the broader outcome of the situation went - what did the Wrath think would happen if whatever the Sith were doing now didn’t go as planned, and Malgus remained at large? That he’d just confine himself to attacking his former allies, and _not_ encroach upon neutral and Republic space to try and gain the advantage?

Or that was what Rivka _thought_ , anyway. One set of thoughts. “And so what, you want to convince me to stay out of the attack so you’ll have a better clear shot to take everyone else out? That’s not terribly motivating, I’ve gotta say.”

Of course, convincing anyone chosen to _replace_ the Emperor’s Wrath after the original’s defection, that they’d need to work with the Republic to ensure a better long-term outcome, was most likely a fool’s errand anyway.

Now Vestiin scowled. “No, I wish to keep you out of the attack because while I don’t particularly _care_ about dealing with any Republic forces that get in my way, I would _prefer_ not to be forced to kill _you_.”

…Okay, that wasn’t what she was expecting. Rivka blinked, and shifted her weight between her feet. “Really. You don’t want to kill me. You do know I’m the one who put a big rune-covered stalactite through your previous Emperor’s chest, right?”

Vestiin’s expression flickered, as did zer presence in the Force. “A fact that I am choosing to overlook for the time being, so long as it remains ancillary to my more immediate concerns.”

Which were _what_ , exactly? And for that matter, who was vhe taking orders from now, if the Emperor was dead? Vhe’d managed to never specify when it came to either. And, for that matter, Rivka had been assuming vhe _knew_ of Vitiate’s death already, the way the Children knew, but from everything happening right now, _could_ she assume that, or assume it uncomplicatedly - ?

But for all that Vestiin’s motivations remained irritatingly opaque – in spite of zer half-theatre production’s worth of performative verbiage – Rivka was getting a certain feeling in her gut that it wasn’t _just_ Sith machinations that wanted her to stay away from engaging Malgus’s people. Jedi teachings, her past self, would’ve probably called it the Force’s intuition; told her to trust that sense even when she didn’t have a solid logical backing for making that decision.

She hadn’t exactly been able to trust, or even reliably _identify_ , that feeling in any context besides the heart of a battle though since she’d come back from _that_ mission.

So what if this was a trap, a deception, some kind of haywire instinct that made her ability to tell someone trustworthy from an enemy spin in circles like faulty droid programming; that uncertainty that was _still_ no easier to live with years later, versus the tactical assessments, the duty toward the people she was sworn to serve and protect…

No. She was done following orders as a crutch for mistrusting herself. Had to keep reminding herself, but she was _done_. Maybe if she ever had enough faith in someone with that kind of authority again, maybe then she could do it, if it was freely chosen instead of just _giving up_. But not like this. Not yet.

“Alright.” Rivka unfolded her arms. “I won’t take part. And for that I will advise the Republic to wait and see too, rather than sending their forces immediately, since even if _you_ don’t care about Republic soldiers dying, I do. But that means the Empire had better clean up their own damn mess before this turns into a bad call on my part, you got that?”

The Wrath remained unreadable through that, though Rivka wondered if she wasn’t imagining a faint gleam of appreciation through the Force. “Don’t worry,” vhe said taking a step away from the wall, a step back toward the entrance of the bunker. “I have every intention of taking good care of this little problem – and I’m not even the only one.”

The war room was tense with an active charge, loud to Rivka instead of subdued and quiet, when she crossed back through the threshold. Half expecting a lightsaber fight to break out on their doorstep with minimal warning, probably, and Rivka couldn’t honestly blame them. But now she had a bit more to do than worry about the trigger impulses of a bunch of frozen Sith-scared soldiers.

“Everything’s fine; nothing bad’s happened,” Rivka said, in answer to the room full of eyes that returned attention to her when she stepped inside. “Lord Vestiin said zer piece and left of zer own accord.

“On the other hand, I’ve got something to say that you’re probably not going to want to hear.”


End file.
